HTA
Contact UsMember StoreAsset Library
LoginBecome a Member

Please Note: Member orders placed between the 20 Dec and 1 Jan will be dispatched from the 2 January 2025.

Plant image

Privacy Policy

Privacy policy

The Horticultural Trades Association ("We") are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
This policy (together with our terms of use and any other documents referred to) sets out how and why we will use any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us. Please read the following to understand how we work, and feel free to contact us via email with any questions.

This privacy policy applies to our Association and will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our websites (regardless of where you visit them from) and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

The websites we operate are:
www.hta.org.uk
www.landscaper.org.uk
www.gardengiftcard.co.uk
www.childrensgardeningweek.co.uk
www.horticulturehouse.co.uk
www.htamembers.co.uk
www.nationalplantshow.co.uk
www.aplawards.co.uk
www.gardenpressevent.co.uk
www.nationalgardengiftvoucher.co.uk
 

For the purpose of the General Data Protection Regulations (“GDPR”) the data controller is The Horticultural Trades Association of Horticulture House, Chilton, Didcot, Oxfordshire, OX11 0RN

How your personal data may be collected

Information you give us. You may give us information about yourself by filling in forms on our web sites (“our sites”) or by phone, e-mail or otherwise. This includes information you provide when you register to use our sites, subscribe to our services, search for a product, place an order on our sites, or use our sites in any other way.

We may automatically collect information about your visits to our sites, including the pages on our site that you visited; how you got to our web site; details of what you viewed, downloaded or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to pages, what you did on the pages (such as where you scrolled to or clicked) and how you left our sites.  

Information we receive from other sources.  We work closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers, credit reference agencies) and may receive information about you from them.

What types of information we collect about you

  • Identity data which includes your surname, first name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, and gender
  • Contact data, for example billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone number.
  • Financial data including bank account and payment card details.
  • Technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access the websites.
  • Profile data for example your username and password, purchased or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses
  • Usage data, information about how you use our website, products and services.
  • Marketing and communications data for example your preferences in receiving communications and marketing from us and third parties.

Cookies and tracking data

Our website uses cookies and tracking technologies to help us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website. Cookies are files with a small amount of data which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a web site and stored on your device. Tracking technologies also used are beacons, tags and scripts to collect and track information about you on an anonymous basis.

We use the anonymous information provided to analyse in aggregate how visitors find the site so that we can make improvements. We also use cookies to provide you with information and advertising on products and content on subjects you’ve shown an interest in or purchased on our sites. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them see our Cookie policy.

When you visit our site for the first time you will be asked whether or not you wish to accept these cookies. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies, or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. If you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our service.

Use of Information

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal in the following circumstances: 

  • Where we need to perform the contract, we are about to enter into or have entered into with you, including the delivery of information (in particular our weekly updates which are sent to all members as part of their membership), products or services you have paid us for as part of subscription (HTA membership) or purchased from us.
  • Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
  • Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to some types of marketing where we have determined that you would reasonably expect us to rely on your consent. We rely on consent to provide you with newsletters and other email updates (other than the weekly updates sent to all members as mentioned above) in accordance with the preferences you communicate to us.

Examples of how information is used are given below; this is not exhaustive of this list.

  • To administer our sites and internal operations
  • To provide our weekly updates which are sent to all members as part of their membership)
  • To market goods or services to you where you have either explicitly consented to this, or where we judge that there is a legitimate interest for you or us
  • To notify you about changes to our services or terms and conditions
  • To respond to any initial enquiries on the basis that we have a legitimate interest to do so
  • For confidential market research or statistical data analysis purposes, in which case all such analysis shall be conducted according to the Market Research Society’s code of conduct www.mrs.org.uk/code 
  • To allow you to take part in any online services which we provide, for instance by providing you with logins and passwords to access such services
  • To list your business as a member of the Horticultural Trades Association or the Association of Professional Landscapers.
  • Where you explicitly consent we will also pass your details on to specifically named third parties, for instance where you make an enquiry through our web site about a third party product promoted through the HTA
  • To share lists of member businesses with other members, that comprises the member’s business name and postal address

Disclosure of Your Information

We may share your information with selected third parties for processing.  We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions, including:

  • Business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract or service we enter into with you
  • Analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site
  • Research agencies and consultants engaged in market research and operating according to the Market Research Society’s code of conduct
  • Marketing agencies or contractors, subject to the provisions on marketing noted earlier in this policy
  • Advertisers and advertising networks that require the data to select and serve relevant adverts to you and others. We do not disclose information about identifiable individuals to our advertisers, but we may provide them with aggregate information about our users. We may also use such aggregate information to help advertisers reach the kind of audience they want to target. We may make use of the personal data we have collected from you to enable us to comply with our advertisers' wishes by displaying their advertisement to that target audience
  • We may disclose your personal information to third parties:
  • In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
  • If The Horticultural Trades Association or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.
  • If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use terms and conditions of supply and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of The Horticultural Trades Association, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Where We Store Your Personal Data

We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy. All information you provide to us is stored on our or third party secure servers or devices. We may transfer your personal information, or store it, outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”) in countries where standards of data protection are not equivalent to those that apply inside the EEA. If we do this we will comply with all relevant data protection legislation. 

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented. 

  • We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission
  • Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the US. For further details, see European Commission: EU-US Privacy Shield

Any payment transactions will be encrypted using SSL technology. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Retention of Data

Personal data will be stored in accordance with applicable laws and kept for as long as needed to carry out the purposes described in this notice or as otherwise required by law. Records and information will only be retained for legitimate business use and will not be held for longer than necessary. 

For historical HTA membership, supplier and employee data, the default retention period is 6 years plus current, otherwise known as 6 years plus 1. There will be exceptions to this rule for records retained beyond this period for statutory, regulatory, legal or security reasons or for their historical value.

Your Rights

You have rights over your data and how we process it under the GDPR. These are detailed on the Information Commissioner’s web site

 You have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
  • Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request. 
  • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
  • Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it. 
  • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you. 
  • Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
  • Complain to the Information Commissioner about the way in which we collect and use your personal data: www.ico.org.uk/concerns or telephone 0303 123 1113.

Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates.  If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies.  Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page.

Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to [email protected]